


A Brother's Lament

by tabbytabbytabby



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [9]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Canonical Character Death, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Gabe Is Greenberg's Brother, Getting Together, Greenberg's Name Is Zac, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Mentioned Gabe, Post-Canon, Roommates, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-23 19:21:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17086223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tabbytabbytabby/pseuds/tabbytabbytabby
Summary: When Zac left for college, it was because he needed a way out. Beacon Hills was too much for him, and he wanted a place to start over. He found that with his best friend Danny. He always planned for his brother to follow him one day. What he wasn't counting on was receiving a phone call from his mother 6 months from his brother Gabe's graduation, telling him that Gabe had been killed.





	A Brother's Lament

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ithinkwehaveanemergency](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ithinkwehaveanemergency/gifts).



> Gifting this to Adri, because I blame her for thinking about Gabe as Greenberg's brother.  
> Also part of Bad Things Happen Bingo: Parting Words Regret

Zac’s in class when he gets the call. He doesn’t notice until class is over and he checks his phone to see 10 missed calls from his mother. There’s also a couple from Danny, along with a text asking him to call him or his mother. Frowning, Zac presses the button and listens as the phone starts to ring. It only rings once before his mother is answering.

“Where the hell have you been?” She says, sounding almost hysterical through the line. “I’ve been trying to call you!”

“I was in class,” Zac says, immediately feeling defensive. “You know, earning the degree we’re paying for. What is it?”

“I need you to come home,” his mother says.

“Mom, I can’t just come home. It’s in the middle of the…”

“Your brother is dead.”

Four words, said so plainly, as if they’re nothing more than fact. Zac stops in his tracks, feeling his heart pounding in his chest and a cold chill run over him. “What did you say?”

He heard her, of course he heard her. But he needs to be sure. He needs to know this is real and not some trick.

“Something happened,” his mother says. “Your brother was killed. I need you home for the funeral. I know you had your differences, but you can at least do that much.”

The fact that she thinks he’d even consider missing the funeral just because of some stupid argument they had years ago makes him angry. But underneath all of that is the shock and disbelief. How can Gabe be dead? He’s just a senior in high school. He has 6 months left until graduation. He’s a good kid. On the honor roll. He…

Zac leans against the wall and slides down to the ground, bringing his knees up to his chest. He doesn’t care that he’s in public and people are probably staring. Let them. The last words he said to Gabe flash through his mind. It had been yet another argument. One that ended with Zac telling him he was being stupid if he thought he could have a good life in Beacon Hills. That had been weeks ago.

Part of him still doesn’t want to believe it. He’d even be okay with this being a prank. A way for his mother to get him on a plane to come home, only to find out Gabe is alive and well. For a moment he lets himself believe that’s what this is. The other option is too much.

“Zac?”

His mother’s voice sounds far away. It’s only when he looks blearily down at his hand, that he realizes he doesn’t even have the phone to his ear anymore.

“I’ll be there,” Zac tells her. “I don’t know how. But I’ll find a way.”

He doesn’t know how long he sits there before he makes himself get to his feet, and run to his apartment. Danny is sitting on the couch when he walks in, but immediately gets to his feet when Zac stumbles towards him.

“Gabe…”

“I know,” Danny says, pulling him in for a tight hug. “I know. Your mother called me when she couldn’t reach you. Zac, I’m so sorry.”

“I have to go back,” Zac tells him. “I need to be there. I couldn’t be there when he was alive and needed me, but the least I can do is show up for his funeral.”

“I’ll go with you,” Danny offers.

Zac sighs, “No. I know how hard you fought to get away from that place. I won’t drag you back there. Not in the middle of...”

“You won’t be dragging me,” Danny says, his voice firm. “I’ll be going willingly. I cared about Gabe, too. And I care about _you_. You shouldn’t have to go back alone. You fought hard to get away from there as much as I did.”

“I just wanted Gabe to be able to get away from there too,” Zac says, sitting heavily on the couch. “He was so close. I never expected him to get wrapped up in all that mess.”

“From what I’ve heard it was hard not to this time,” Danny says.

“You know what happened?” Zac asks him. “My mom didn’t say anything other than he was…” He stops, unable to get the words out. As if saying them will make it more real. “She didn’t give details. But it’s Beacon Hills so I figured....”

“I don’t know details,” Danny says, taking a seat next to him. “Jackson called me wanting advice on whether he and Ethan should go back. He explained what he knew, which wasn’t much. They’d been attacked by hunters and apparently the center of it was Beacon Hills. Of course. He called me last night to let me know they were safe, and just said to be careful because some psychotic hunter was still on the loose. And she was probably recruiting.”

“You think Gabe was involved in that?” Zac asks, trying to imagine his little brother in line with hunters. He’d always hated guns.

“I don’t know,” Danny says. “If you want answers the only place you’re going to get them is Beacon Hills.”

Zac knows he’s right. He’s not sure he’s going to like what he finds out when he gets there, but he needs to know.

 

He’s not expecting a warm reception when he gets back to Beacon Hills, and he doesn’t get one. His mother takes one look at him and shakes her head. “I changed your room into an office, so you’ll have to sleep on the couch if you’re staying here.”

Zac looks out the window, to where Danny is still sitting in his car. He feels no need to stay here. Not with his mother. He’d just needed to see for himself that Gabe really isn’t here. Some part of his brain still tells him he could just be out. He ignores his mothers call after him and goes down the hall to Gabe’s room. The door is closed, but he pushes it open. It looks almost the same as the last time he saw it. Except…

He walks to the corner of the room, swallowing thickly when he realizes the gun is real. “What was he doing with this?” Zac asks, turning his head to look at his mother, who is watching him from the doorway.

She shrugs, “He took an interest in guns.”

“And you didn’t think to question it?”

Her posture stiffens and she glares at him, “I did the best I could with him. I thought he might be safer with it. And you—” she points an accusing finger at him as her voice rises. “You have no right to judge me. You’re the one that took off and left us. Left _him._ You didn’t see the way he cried for you for a week straight, begging you to come back. Once he realized you weren’t he stopped crying. He didn’t smile as much. He wasn’t the same.”

“You cannot blame this on me!” Zac shouts, feeling his body start to shake. “You were the one that was here! You should have noticed!”

“And you should have been here!”

Zac storms past her, his feet taking him through the house and out the front door, to where Danny is thankfully still waiting. He closes his eyes, ignoring his mother still shouting after him from the porch.

“Yeah you run away! Just like you always do! It’s the only thing you’re good at!”

“You alright?” Danny asks him, his voice soft.

Zac nods, running a shaking hand through his hair. “Fine. Just drive. Please.”

“Where to?” Danny inquires, “Jackson and Ethan are supposed to come over, but I can cancel.”

“No, it’s fine. You should see your friends. I might not be the best company right now, but I don’t think I should be alone.”

Danny reaches over and takes his hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “So you won’t be. I’m here, whatever you need.”

Zac rests his forehead against Danny’s and tries to take a few calming breaths. “You always are. I don’t deserve you.”

Danny makes a thoughtful noise before tilting his head down and letting his lips brush lightly against Zac’s. His free hand comes up to brush across Zac’s cheek as he gives him a fond smile, “Well you have me. I love you, and I’m not going anywhere.”

“Danny…”

Danny shakes his head, “It’s okay. I kind of have horrible timing, I know. I don’t expect you to say anything. I just figured you should know. With all the bad, there is still something good.”

“You’ve always been my something good,” Zac tells him, earning a small smile from Danny. He sighs and leans into Danny’s touch. “We will talk about this later. I promise.”

“I know.” Danny pulls back with a regretful smile. “For now let’s get to my parents. I think we could both use some food, and a drink.”

“Or seven,” Zac says.

Danny tries to look disapproving, but fails when a grin spreads across his face. “You are not getting drunk in front of my parents.”

“Of course not,” Zac says. “If I get drunk it’ll be upstairs in your bedroom, away from your parents.”

Danny sighs, “That’s not any better.”

Zac doesn’t get drunk. He does have a drink with Danny before Jackson and Ethan arrive. No matter how much he wants to drink himself into oblivion right now, he knows he can’t. He doesn’t want to show hungover for his brother’s funeral in the morning. He’s already let him down enough. He’s not going to add another thing to the list.

Danny is there with him as he gets ready in the morning, taking pity on him after he’s failed at tying his tie for the fifth time.

“I’m not sure how I’m supposed to do this,” Zac whispers.

“No one ever is,” Danny tells him. “But you’re not alone. I’ll be there with you the whole time, whatever you need.”

Danny reaches over and takes his hand, lacing their fingers together. Zac lets the feeling ground him as they make their way out to the car, and start the short drive to the funeral home. There are quite a few cars parked outside, which is a bit of a relief. But it also means there’s going to be an audience when he sees Gabe’s body. He takes a deep breath and opens the doors.

His feet feel like lead as he walks into the crowded entrance hall and then into the viewing room. He can see the coffin at the front and stops at the end of an aisle. It’s Danny’s reassuring presence that keeps him standing and moving up the aisle towards the coffin.

Zac looks down at the body, and feels his stomach churn as a lump forms in his throat. He feels Danny rest a hand on his back and is once against grateful for his presence. The boy in the coffin looks so different from the one Zac left all those years ago. He imagines death has played a part in that, but he knows even if he saw him alive he’d be almost unrecognizable.

“He didn’t deserve this,” Zac whispers, the words sounding harsh to his own ears.

“No,” Danny agrees. “He didn’t.”

Zac feels his legs start to shake and leans on the coffin for support. He brings a hand down to brush through Gabe’s already too brittle hair. “I’m so sorry, Gabe.”

“It’s a little too late for that, don’t you think?” His mother’s voice sounds from behind him, making him pull away.

He stands up straight, but doesn’t turn to face her. Next to him, he notices Danny tense as well.

“You should have been here,” his mother tells him. “If you had, he might still be here.”

“You don’t know that,” Danny says, his voice sounding angrier than Zac has ever heard it. “You just want someone else to blame, when maybe you should be looking in the mirror.”

“How dare you,” his mother hisses. “How dare you stand there and say such things to me on the day I’m going to be burying my baby boy.”

“Maybe you should have cared a little more when he was alive,” Zac tells her. “Rather than most likely being too drunk to notice what was going on with your own son.”

Her hand comes up, but someone catches it before it can connect with Zac’s face. Zac turns his head to see Melissa McCall standing there. She looks to Zac before fixing her stern gaze on his mother. “I know emotions are running a little high right now, but I hardly think this is the place. Or that your son would want you two fighting.”

“There’s no way of knowing what he would want,” his mother says, yanking her arm out of Melissa’s grip. “He’s dead. And you--” she points a finger at Zac, “are not going to be up here. I can’t be near you right now.”

Zac doesn’t need to be told twice. He’s already had more than enough of his mother. He lets Danny lead him away towards two seats in the second row. He barely hears anything that’s being said throughout the service. His eyes keep drifting back towards Gabe. Zac can’t decide if he looks at peace or not. To him he just looks pale and stiff and dead, nothing like the smiling boy he remembers.

***

_“Gabe?”_

_The sniffling boy by the door steps further into the room and wipes at his eyes, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”_

_“You didn’t,” Zac tells him, and it’s the truth. He’s spent most of tonight tossing and turning, which is why he so easily noticed Gabe when he came in. “You can’t sleep either?”_

_Gabe shakes his head and takes another step towards the bed, “No. I was thinking about Papa.”_

_Zac sighs. That’s what’s been keeping him up as well, but probably for a different reason. “Do you want to stay in here?”_

_Gabe nods and walks the rest of the way towards the bed, barely even hesitating before crawling under the covers and pressing himself close to his brother. Zac wraps an arm around him when he starts to cry. He’s been doing that a lot lately. At 6 years old it’s hard for him to understand why their father would want to leave them._

_Zac’s only 9 but he gets it more than Gabe does. He’s seen the arguments between his parents that would often end with his mother crying and his father storming out, only to return home drunk later. He can’t help but feel relieved that his father is gone. But he knows it’s different for Gabe. He loves their father, and looks up to him._

_“Were we not enough?” Gabe asks him, his voice small. “Did he not love us?”_

_“He did,” Zac says, though he’s not sure he believes it. “He just loves himself more. But that’s not our fault, Gabe.”_

_Gabe is silent for a moment, the only sound his quiet sniffling. Then he’s speaking, his voice barely above a whisper. “I hate him.”_

_“You don’t,” Zac says, not knowing that one day he’ll grow to hate him. “You love him, and that’s what makes it hard.”_

_“Don’t ever leave me,” Gabe begs. “Not like Dad. Please.”_

_Zac places a kiss to the top of his head, and holds him tighter. “I won’t. I promise.”_

_“I won’t leave you either,” Gabe tells him. “Ever.”_

***

He remembers years later Gabe throwing that promise back at him when Zac had put his last bag in the trunk as he prepared to leave for college. Telling him if he left he’d be just like their father, and he promised he wouldn’t. He’d ignored Zac as he tried to explain it was different, and had walked inside, not even staying to see Zac leave. Their mother had tried to tell him Gabe would come around, and Zac had hoped he would. He always thought he’d have time to make it up to him. He wasn’t counting on him being murdered. At least that’s what Zac assumes happened. He’s not sure how else his brother could be gunned down.

He looks up when he hears a branch snap to see an unfamiliar figure standing a few feet away. He thinks he saw him at the funeral with Scott McCall and his pack, but he can’t be certain. There were a lot of unfamiliar faces there, and it was all a blur. He barely remembers coming here with Danny, and then asking for some time alone.

“You’re Gabe’s brother,” he says. His eyes are on the freshly packed earth and not Zac.

Zac still nods, unsure what he’s supposed to say. It wasn’t a question. The guy already knows. “You’re part of Scott McCall’s pack.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” the guy says, and Zac notes a slight bitterness to his voice. “More like pack adjacent. We have a little bit of history.”

“Doesn’t almost everyone in this town?” Zac mutters.

“I was with him,” the younger man says, his eyes glancing in Zac’s direction before moving away. “When he died. I was with him.”

Zac doesn’t have to ask who the him is. He knows. “So you know what happened to him?”

“You don’t?” the other man asks, sounding surprised.

Zac shakes his head, “All my mom told me is that he was killed. I’ve heard talk of hunters, but no one has actually told me anything. I don’t even know who you are.”

“Theo,” he says. “My name is Theo. I can tell you what happened to your brother, but it won’t be easy to hear.”

“I wasn’t expecting it to be,” Zac tells him. “But I need answers.”

Zac listens as Theo tells him about the hunters and some creature called the Anuk-Ite. He listens as he’s told the horrible things his brother did, and finally how he was killed in the hospital, but by one of his own. It’s hard to believe that the person he’s hearing about is his brother. It seems like the sort of thing that would happen to a stranger. Not to Gabe. Though he supposes Gabe had become a stranger to him over the past few years.

Zac looks down at the grave and feels a twinge of guilt, “If I had been here…”

“I don’t think it would have mattered,” Theo tells him. “It was all a mess, and it would have been hard not to get caught up in it. Especially with Monroe having so much influence at the high school. If he hadn’t been her ally, he would have been her enemy.”

“I’m not sure that’s really much of a distinction,” Zac says. “Seems like she was okay with killing anyone. Friend or foe.”

“She was,” Theo says. “But she won’t get away with this. We’re going to catch her.”

“I want to help,” Zac tells him. He hadn’t planned to get involved, and he knows Danny probably won’t be happy about it. But he doesn’t think he has a choice. “Gabe was my brother. This Monroe woman had him killed. I’m going to do what I can to make sure she pays for that. Either with you, or on my own.”

Theo stares at him for a moment. Zac’s not sure what he’s looking for, but he must find it, because he finally nods. “I think you deserve that chance. Some of the others might not see it that way, and might try and talk you out of it.”

“But you won’t?”

“No,” Theo says. “She’s hurt a lot of people, and she’s going to continue to if no one stops her. Plus, it’s better for you to have back up, rather than going out alone and getting yourself killed.”

“I know how to handle myself,” Zac tells him.

“What exactly do you do?” Theo asks, crossing his arms as he peers down at him.

“I’m in school to be a teacher…” when Theo smirks, he narrows his eyes. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t take care of myself. I’ve taken plenty of self-defense and martial arts classes. After living here, I wanted to make sure I always knew how to protect myself and the people I care about.”

He closes his eyes when he thinks about Gabe, now dead in the ground in front of him. “I couldn’t protect my brother. But I can at least make sure the person that’s responsible for his death pays for what she did.”

“Then it looks like you’ve got yourself a partner,” Theo tells him. “I’m sure I can get us more help.”

“Like who?”

“Well Gabe’s boyfriend, for one,” Theo says. “Nolan isn’t exactly happy with Monroe right now. And I know some other people that would be willing to help.”

He doesn’t specify who, but it doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t change his mind. He knows Danny won’t like it. Danny has made it more than clear that he doesn’t want anything to do with werewolf business. But that’s not what this is. He just hopes Danny is able to understand that.

They return home a few days later. Theo has promised he’ll get in touch with Zac once his classes are over for the semester so they can meet up. He still hasn’t told Danny he’s leaving. He’s not sure how. Danny seems so relieved to be away from Beacon Hills again, and back to their normal lives. But he knows he has to say something. Waiting won’t make it any easier.

“Once classes are done, I’m leaving,” Zac tells him, finally saying the words he’s been dreading.

Rather than looking surprised or upset, Danny just nods. “I know.”

“You know?”

“I talked to Scott after the funeral,” Danny admits. “He told me what happened with Gabe, and that they’re still looking for the woman who ordered him killed. I knew once you found out you’d want to help find her.”

“She might not have pulled the trigger, but she killed my brother,” Zac says. “I can’t…”

“I _know_.” Danny puts a hand on his cheek, and gives him a sad smile. “I’m not saying I like the idea of you going out there and putting yourself in danger. But I can understand why you need to. I know if she hurt you or my family I’d want to do the same. So just try not to get killed so I don’t have to add murder to my list of crimes.”

Zac knows he’s mostly joking, but he can see the fear in his eyes. He leans in and kisses him, hoping he can say with his lips what he can’t speak. Not yet. Saying the words now would feel like a cop out. Like he’s doing it because he’s afraid he won’t be making it back.

“When I come back I’m finally going to take you out on a date,” Zac tells him, resting his forehead against Danny’s. “And I will be coming back, Danny. Because I have a reason to.”

“You better,” Danny tells him. “Because I have plans. And if you die, not only will I go after the person that hurt you, I’ll bring you back just to kill you myself.”

“Seems counterproductive.”

“It’ll get the point across,” Danny says.

Zac kisses him again, because he can. Because he’s tired of denying himself, and wants to have this one good thing. He wants to memorize the way Danny’s lips feel against his own. The way Danny holds him close as they make out on his bed, as if he’s afraid to let him go. The way he feels safe and cared for wrapped up in his arms. He promises himself that after this is all over he’s going to tell Danny exactly how he feels.

3 months later when he’s standing outside the door leading to their apartment, he remembers that promise. And when he opens the door to see Danny standing in the kitchen, wearing a soft sweater and glasses as he stirs something on the stove, he knows he’s going to keep it.


End file.
